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WE DIE
FREEDOM OF MIND
…I lost my loved ones. Sorry to tell you that, but I did. I lost my father, my mother, my brother, and my sister, and finally I died. I died 660,000 times. Americans ask “why do you hate us?” well… I have 660,000 reasons to hate you. But I’m not like you, I’m better, I am not going to go on a killing frenzy, and kill every American I see, I won’t come to America and destroy it, I won’t butcher your children, or rape your girls. I just won’t. 660,000 people died in Iraq, and do you care? ! Nooooooooooooooooooo, you don’t. You would have cared more if they were cattle or sheep; you would have cared more if they were chicken infected with bird flu. For god’s sake, you care more about your dogs than about humane beings. (…) But you didn’t just kill my body 660,000 times; you killed my dreams, my hopes, and my future. You killed the humane being I thought I was, the one I always longed to be. I’m thinking of all the children who have died, I’m thinking of all the mothers and father who have died and left their children, I’m thinking of the brothers and sisters who have died and left their mother and fathers and siblings. I’m thinking of their hopers, dreams, and future. I’m thinking what would have happened if they hadn’t died, If you hadn’t killed them. I’m thinking of them and I feel like I have died 660,000 times…
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Iraqi federalism vote: Behind the contradictory numbers
Arablinks.blogspot.com
The Iraqi parliament voted (Wednesday, October 11) 140 to nothing, in a more-or-less routine vote, to approve the federalism-procedures bill. Or did they? The New York Times said so. But the Iraqi paper Azzaman said the vote was 138 to nothing, the figure representing exactly one-half of the membership (275) plus one, moreover it said a lot of people thought there was something funny about the vote. Al-Mada, another Baghdad paper, agre! es with Azzaman on both points. The pan-Arab al-Hayat, another standard source, says the vote was 148 on the yea side, out of 175 attending. And yes, says al-Hayat, there were indeed complaints about how it was done, quoting the leader of one of the opposition groups who said the whole procedure was a put-up job (mu’amara). The Iraqi papers saw this as part of a fight for the soul of the country, and not a clean fight either…
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Padilla Update: Bush has been Torturing American Citizens since 2002
Mike Whitney
Jose Padilla is an innocent man. His story tells us everything we need to know about the Stalinist regime currently operating in Washington and their utter disdain for human rights, civil liberties and American citizenship. Padilla was taken into custody on May 8, 2002 at Chicago’s O’ Hare Airport by Federal agents and placed in solitary confinement. He was stripped of his constitutionally-guaranteed rights and forbidden to see an a! ttorney. He was detained as a material witness although Attorney General John Ashcroft accused him publicly of being a “dirty bomber”; alleging that he was planning to detonate a nuclear device within the United States. He was not charged with a crime. For the next 4 years he was isolated, tortured and used as a lab-rat in drug experiments with LSD and other mind-altering hallucinogens…
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Iraq Sanctions
Jeff MySpace Blog ·
… Look at the economic sanctions that we’re placed on Iraq in the early 1990's by the UN through the influence of the US. These economic sanctions were highly controversial and led to the deaths of millions of innocent civilians in Iraq. Yet these facts hardly ever reached the news stands in the US. Why would the deaths of so many innocent people go unreported? After the sanctions were in place, Iraq was not allowed to import and export many goods. This led to a complete coll! apse to the country’s infrastructure. This caused mass suffering to the civilian population. Peter Vermilye, member of a delegation of U.S. teachers sent by the American Friends Service Committee to assess the education system of Iraq, said, “It was truly heart-wrenching to see the current state of the Iraqi educational system, which was once the envy of the Arab world. And now sanctions have stripped away those advances, stealing the future from a generation of children.”…
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GI Special 4J14: Firestorm – October 14, 2006
Thomas F. Barton
The authority of Tony Blair was left battered last night as he attempted to play down a rift with the head of the British Army over his unprecedented warning that the presence of foreign troops was “exacerbating” the security situation in Iraq
The devastating assessment by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, infuriated ministers and caused alarm in Washington.
However there was widespread backing across the Army yesterday as soldiers of every rank praised General Dannatt for standing up to the Government.
Within hours of his comments being made public, the Army’s unofficial website was packed with hundreds of blogs from troops voicing their support. The messages included: “Can Tony Blair recover from this and justify British presence in Iraq, without using the words ‘I was wrong …?’” Another said: “Dannatt gets my vote! Anyone care to disagree with him? We were lied to when it all started and we are still lied to today!”
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Iraq: Divide and Rule, ‘Ethnic Cleansing Works’
Enver Masud, The Wisdom Fund
Polls by the State Department and independent researchers show that Iraqis favor an immediate U.S. pullout, meanwhile, an “independent commission”, according to the Sunday Times, “may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions”. The War on Islam We believe that the commission’s recommendation will have little to do with the welfare of the Iraqis. Their recommendations will have much to do with expanding U.S. control ! of the energy resources of the Middle East and Central Asia…
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Sunni Arabs Targeted in Revenge Killings
Violence Flares After Beheading Of Shiite Workers
Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldin, Washington Post Foreign Service
Seeking revenge for the killing of 17 Shiite farmworkers, Shiite militiamen surged into a town north of Baghdad on Saturday to launch attacks that by nightfall killed at least 27 Sunni Arabs, many of them brought to a hospital bearing the marks of electric drills and other signs of torture, according to medical workers, residents, police and! militia leaders. Sounds of shooting suggested the killing in the city of Balad continued into the night Saturday, as reinforcements from the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry arrived and residents cowered in their homes. “You hear nothing but gunshots,” Hasanein Ali, assistant director of Balad’s hospital, said by telephone. In addition to the dead counted at the hospital, one Balad resident who fled the city said he had seen more bodies burned in the streets…
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GI Special 4J13: “ Soldiers Are Not Renewable” – October 13, 2006
Thomas F. Barton
The South Turns Against The War: “57% Of Southerners Believe The U.S. ‘Should Have Stayed Out Of Iraq’” “30% Of Those Polled In Southern States Say The U.S. Should ‘Withdraw Completely’”
When asked to provide “an acceptable number of U.S. military deaths” in Iraq, 63% of respondents in Southern states and 68% in other regions said “zero.” When asked later in the survey how much more money the US should “spend in order to complete the mission in Iraq,” 50% of Southerners and 47% of respondents elsewhere said no additional dollars should be spent.
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How bad was that ammo dump fire?
Blah3.com
On Tuesday, Monkeyfister posted a BBC story about the ammo dump fire at a forward base outside of Baghdad, and at the time it seemed pretty bad. It was confirmed that an enemy attack was the cause of this explosion. It was also confirmed that the explosions and resulting fires lasted no less than 13 straight hours, with the fires burning at least twice as long thereafter. We knew that before the blasts, this heavily protected camp and depot held more than 5,000 US troops! . Since the day it happened, there have been no stories about the incident in the US media. No casualty reports, no news on how they’ll replace the munitions, no damage reports on the base. Nothing. And no one in the US corporate media has even seen fit to ask about it…
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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SATURDAY, October 14, 2005
Today in Iraq
…Iraqi police found 25 unidentified bodies in different parts of Baghdad during the past 24 hours, a police source said on Saturday. “Our patrols found 25 bodies during the past 24 hours in several Baghdad’s neighborhoods,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity (…) Authorities found the decapitated corpses of seven people. The decapitated bodies were found late Friday in an orchard in the city of Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad. Three ! had been among a group of 17 construction workers kidnapped Thursday while traveling home to the predominantly Shiite town of Balad, police said. The corpses of the other 14 workers were found earlier Friday, also all beheaded. The bodies of two unidentified men were fished from the Tigris river in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad. Four bodies, all lacking their heads were fished out of the Tigris river in the village of Suweira just downstream from the capital. Iraqi police patrols found 26 bodies scattered in different parts of the town of Balad, some 80 km north of Baghdad. The bullet-ridden bodies were all bound…
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SORRY AHMED
DesertPeace
In the early 80's I was living in a small town in Northern Ontario. There was a university there which was attended by many foreign students. One of them was a young man from Palestine. Ahmed often came to my home to visit and we became very good friends. I remember on one occasion he related to me a childhood experience that left me feeling sick… I doubted him at first thinking that the story was exaggerated, or even fabricated, but never the less, it remained with me. He told me of wal! king home from school in his home town of Nablus, he and a friend. He then told me that ‘out of the blue’ Israeli soldiers appeared on the street and shot his little friend dead. I did not want to believe that any civilised country would allow its soldiers to act in this manner… I thought his ‘tale’ was just another from the anti Israeli propaganda machine. After living here some twenty two years I can honestly say that there is no such machine… Israel itself produces enough reasons in one day to prove that my friend spoke the truth to me. To add insult to injury, I, the son of Eastern European immigrants, born in the United States, being removed from Israel by some 2000 years was allowed entry to Israel… entry to remain here permanently. Ahmed, who was born here was not permitted to return…
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How to Critique Israel Injustices
A Fable About Palestine
JEAN BRICMONT
Let’s start with a story. Imagine that Africa has become rich and powerful, and that Euroope has become poor, divided and without real independence. Imagine next that, tired of being repeatedly massacred, the Tutsis decide to found a national home elsewhere. Certain of their leaders designate Wallonia, in Belgium, as that new home. Other Africans, to solve what some call the “Tutsi problem”, approve of the project. Thus a flood of ! Tutsis pack up, weapons and all, and begin to settle in that region, while proclaiming that the people already living there have to go somewhere else. With their wealth, their determination and their weapons, the Tutsis rapidly manage to take possession of the farms, forests and towns and chase away most of the natives, either by legal means or by intimidation. A large part of Wallonia becomes a new Tutsi State, which boasts of being particularly well governed and democratic. All of Africa looks on in admiration. However, to the surprise of the Africans, most of the Walloons are against that arrangement…
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Spiritual Felo De Se:
Fealty to a Moral Abomination
Jason Miller
Populist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez had the sheer audacity to stand before the United Nations and deliver an angry diatribe against the enemy of humanity. Dispensing with mealy-mouthed pleasantries, he verbally savaged Bush in his fiery oration. Chavez knows an abhorrent war criminal when he sees one and he isn’t one to mince words or use polite euphemisms. George Bush had addressed the assembly the previous day with an incredibly dis! ingenuous monologue loaded with platitudes and Orwellian Doublespeak Admittedly, with his credibility around the world and uncanny capacity to articulate in an intelligent manner, Bush was a tough act to follow at the UN. But somehow, Chavez managed…
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Blair Devastated as Army Chief Savages His Approach to Iraq
Colin Brown, Terri Judd and Andrew Buncombe, The Independent UK
The authority of Tony Blair was left battered last night as he attempted to play down a rift with the head of the British Army over his unprecedented warning that the presence of foreign troops was “exacerbating” the security situation in Iraq. The devastating assessment by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, infuriated ministers and caused alarm in Washington. Howev! er there was widespread backing across the Army yesterday as soldiers of every rank praised General Dannatt for standing up to the Government…
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Official: Guard Force Is Behind Death Squads
Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post Foreign Service
Iraq’s interior minister on Friday rejected allegations that Iraq’s police and military have played a major role in the death squads blamed for Baghdad’s surging violence, saying that only a small number of all those caught in U.S. or Iraqi raids were members of the police or army. Jawad al-Bolani, speaking to a small group of reporters in Baghdad, blamed the Facilities Protection Service, or FPS, a massive but unregula! ted government guard force whose numbers he put at about 150,000…
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More information about dividing Iraq
Roads to Iraq
Russian newspapers “Nezavisimaja Gazeta” reported that the US to form a commission from both parties (Republicans and Democrats) to negotiate the implementation of dividing Iraq into three regions (North, South and the Middle), each enjoys a high degree of autonomy, especially in the provision of internal security. According the Russian newspapers, James Baker is at the head of this commission suggests that the US can not achieve this task, therefore, he will sub! mit his report to Saudi Arabia, and OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference), to try to convince the Iraqis about this plan through the Islamic world…
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Head of British Army calls for Iraq withdrawal
Chris Marsden
Britain’s Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has made a public call for British troops to withdraw from Iraq soon or risk catastrophic consequences for both Iraq and British society. In an interview with the Daily Mail, the head of the army said that not only did the continuing presence of British troops “exacerbates the security problems” in Iraq, but that it also exacerbates the “difficulties we are facing around the world.” In a! ddition, it meant that a “moral and spiritual vacuum” has opened up in British society, which is allowing Muslim extremists to undermine the Christian values that underpin “our accepted way of life.”…
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Death squad tactic is absolutely characteristic of EVERY US intervention…
Chris Herz
We are in the midst of an appalling situation in Iraq. We are told that it is the product of one error after another. But no, it is really the natural and predictable result of one crime piled upon another. When we hear news like we are hearing this morning: 60 murder victims found across Baghdad, we cannot forget the absolutely arrogant, open discussion here in Washington of some months back of the US need for a “Salvadorean o! ption” in Iraq to deal with the resistance…
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“The Children of the World Don’t Deserve”
The Case Against Depleted Uranium
DON MONKERUD
…”Clinton and Bush totally were aware of the use of DU and made conscious choices to disregard the law,” said Rokke. “The world needs to know about it: It’s a horrible mess and it will continue until someone holds these people accountable for what they’ve done and demands compliance. The children of the world don’t deserve this.” The Pentagon took 25 years to acknowledge problems with the corrosive defoliant Agen! t Orange, used in Vietnam to destroy the jungle. It took 40 years before sick WWII veterans were compensated for exposure to atomic bomb radiation. Officials today can’t say, “We didn’t know,” because they are fully aware of the dangers of DU. How long will it take them to stop using radioactive ammunition and exposing soldiers and civilians to genetic damage, cancer and other illnesses?…
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Video
Shays defends comments on Abu Ghraib
Mark Ginocchio /Southern Connecticut Newspapers
U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays was under fire yesterday after saying in a debate earlier this week that the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison was not torture but rather a “sex ring” involving National Guard troops. Amnesty International officials and Shays’ challengers in the 4th District said it was absurd for the Republican incumbent to call the acts at the Iraqi prison anything but torture. “This is outrageous for a sitt! ing congressman who was shown pictures (of Abu Ghraib) that were not even available to the public because they were supposed to be more provocative,” said Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast regional director for Amnesty International. “The photographs did not only depict humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners. They showed prisoners who were killed.”…
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Rights group: Shin Bet denies vital treatment to Palestinians
Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
The Shin Bet security service is systematically preventing Palestinians who need medical treatment unavailable in the territories from entering Israel, a new report by the nonprofit organization Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) charges. According to the organization, in many cases, patients have been denied urgent, life-saving treatment. The report says that the Shin Bet automatically refuses entry permits, and recons! iders its decisions only if legal action is begun…
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